Division I Men

For Thompsons, It's Faith, Family and Lacrosse

Lyle Thompson might be the best of Albany’s hypnotizing
trio, but you can’t have one without the others

From left to right: Albany's
dazzling attack trio of Miles, Lyle and Ty Thompson. The Great
Danes head to Baltimore to face third-seeded Loyola on Saturday in
an NCAA tournament first-round game. (Greg Wall)

Editor’s note: A version of this
story appeared in the February 2014 edition of Lacrosse
Magazine highlighting Lyle Thompson as NCAA Division I men's
Preseason Player of the Year as part of our special 54-page college
preview section. It is updated below to reflect information from
the current season. Don’t get the mag? Join US Lacrosse
and its 415,000-plus members today to start your
subscription.

It seems appropriate to start this story about Lyle Thompson
with him at a dinner table surrounded by family.

So there was Lacrosse Magazine’s 2014 Preseason
Player of the Year and Tewaaraton Award front-runner, on a
mid-November Monday night, sitting at a circular, eight-person
banquet hall table at a charity event in Latham, N.Y., a short
drive north of Albany. In his arms, the college junior held his
7-month-old daughter, Mercy. She stood on his lap and they looked
at each other face-to-face. To their right sat Thompson’s
2-year-old daughter, Layielle, eating chicken wings handed to her
by Thompson’s older brother, Miles. You know Miles, the one
who runs alongside Lyle the best attack line in college lacrosse
right now and maybe ever.

On the far side of the group opposite Lyle, their cousin, Ty,
ate dessert after disposing wing bones on a plastic plate in the
middle of the table. It was a fitting arrangement. The right side
is where the lefty finisher sets up shop when Albany has the ball
on offense.

Some call it chemistry, the way the Thompsons riffed off one
another to combine for more points (254) than most teams
in 2013. The way Lyle and Miles were able to each eclipse the
100-point mark this year. They call it family.

This space is about an individual honor for Lyle Thompson, whose
50 goals and 63 assists left him two points shy of setting the NCAA
Division I men’s single-season record in 2013, a mark of 114
he tied this year — just last Saturday against UMBC —
and likely will break in the Great Danes’ first-round NCAA
tournament game Saturday against Loyola. He probably would have
moved past the number last season had he not missed a game for
Mercy’s birth. Last year he was the first Native American
finalist for the Native American-inspired Tewaaraton Award. The
five finalists for this year’s award will be named
Thursday.

But one Thompson’s success cannot be referenced without
talking about the others. The trio came to Albany as a package
deal. Miles and Ty are seniors, and Miles too is a legitimate
Tewaaraton contender. Lyle, whom Ty said has always been the best
of them, is a junior. They are members of the Six Nations of the
Iroquois Confederacy. Expectations at the start of the season were
high, both within the team and around college lacrosse, for a
spectacular four months.

***

Back inside the Century House in Latham in November, team
members wore gold jerseys with purple numbers over collared shirts
and posed in the corner of a crowded, wedding reception-style room
for a picture with Jay Honsinger, the father of 10-year-old JP, who
has been diagnosed with childhood Alzheimer’s. The disease
leads to uncurable neurological problems.

The event, a fundraiser for JP, featured a silent auction of
memorabilia from teams like the Yankees and Giants. The Honsinger
family lives in nearby Clifton Park, N.Y., and Albany lacrosse is
one of JP’s favorite teams. One of his wishes was to meet the
Thompsons, which he did at a practice in the fall. He wanted to
join the Great Danes for as many home games as possible this
spring.

On this night, JP’s family felt the event would be too
overwhelming for him. Lyle and Miles Thompson flanked the father in
the middle of the photo.

When they returned to the table, someone asked Lyle,
“Where’s mom?” His girlfriend, Amanda Longboat,
lives with him and Miles in an off-campus house. She helps with the
kids as all three balance their time and resources. Lyle and Amanda
started dating four years ago. She’s originally from Six
Nations of the Grand River reserve, about a four-hour drive west
from the Onondaga Nation where Lyle and Miles grew up. (Ty is from
the Mohawk Nation.)

“She has the night off,” Lyle said with a smile.

***

Earlier that day, Albany had practice. For a mid-November
afternoon in Albany, the weather was divine — 61 degrees with
clear blue skies. The Great Danes coaching staff, led by Scott
Marr, decided to take advantage of it, playing full field for about
60 minutes. The lowering, late-afternoon sun shone so bright that
the goalies on the east end of the field struggled to see the shots
coming at them.

The Thompsons just happened to have their backs to the light.
Defending them just got more difficult. A cross-handed catch and
pass by Lyle around the crease had one Albany mimicking the
maneuver for teammates on the sideline.

“Did you see that?” he asked.

ABC's World News Tonight featured
the Thompsons as their Persons of the Week last
Friday.

The Thompsons’ stick skills, vision and field sense are
uncanny. It’s been this way for a while.

“That’s a lot of the backyard game and box
lacrosse,” Lyle said, referring to 2-on-2 contests he had
with his three older brothers, Jerome, Jeremy and Miles. “If
I’m going to pass to them, I have so much confidence in them
to catch it. It doesn’t even have to be a good pass. If a
defender’s stick is in the way, I can throw it down here and
they’re going to catch it. Miles and I have always done that;
put it in a spot where you wouldn’t expect it. A defender is
expecting you to catch up high, but a lot times he will tell me to
throw it low. Same thing with Ty. A lot of times, I get credit for
creating, but I just throw it there and he makes the amazing catch
and puts it in the net.”

Lyle and Miles’ parents — Jerome Thompson Sr., a
Mohawk, and Deloris Thompson, an Onondaga — have five
children. In addition to the four boys, there’s one girl,
Crystal. Lyle and Miles spent parts of their high school career in
Onondaga near Syracuse and the Akwesasne Mohawk Nation on the
northern border between New York and Canada. They played two
seasons at Salmon River (N.Y.) High while helping to care for an
ailing grandmother before moving back to Onondaga and starring at
LaFayette (N.Y) High.

At the urging of their father and in following the paths of
their older brothers, Lyle and Miles decided to play lacrosse in
college. Jeremy and Jerome Jr. both played at Onondaga Community
College, a junior college juggernaut. Jeremy went on to play two
seasons at Syracuse as an All-American midfielder and now plays
professionally for Major League Lacrosse’s Florida Launch and
the National Lacrosse League’s Edmonton Rush.

Many expected Lyle and Miles, along with cousin Ty, to follow
suit at Syracuse. Instead, in the fall of 2009, all three chose to
play for Albany.

“I was the first one recruited by them,” said Ty,
who led the Great Danes with 54 goals in 2013 and has 36 goals and
12 assists this season. “When I committed, these guys got on
board. We wanted to start something new. Instead of all young
Native Americans wanting to go to Syracuse all the time, come to
Albany. We wanted to make the NCAA tournament; we did that last
year. This year the national championship is our goal.”

“That was our dream,” Miles said. “We decided
we were going to go to college together. We looked at our older
brothers. They played so well together. Their pick-and-roll game,
nobody really stopped it. That’s what me and Lyle’s
goal was.”

The Thompsons were inseparable, their bond as solid as concrete.
Marr cited a game last season in which Miles suffered a concussion.
It was a windy day, he was disoriented and while being helped off
the field he repeatedly screamed, “Where’s Lyle?”
When Miles was a freshman and Lyle was still in high school, he
went home every weekend to visit him.

“You would think they’re twins by the way they
interact with each other,” Marr said. “You’ve
never seen brothers as close like best friends as you have with
these two. I never realized how strong their bond was.”

Even in an injury-shortened season, Miles had 43 goals and 30
assists in 12 games. His 6.08 points per game were just off
Lyle’s national-best 6.64. This year, Miles has made his own
name on the national scene. He leads the nation in goals per game
with 4.63 and is within striking distance of the Division I
single-season goals record of 82 by Yale midfielder Jon Reese in
1990. Miles has 74 goals in 16 games, and is also second nationally
in points per game (6.75), only behind Lyle (7.13). There’s
business to finish, but even in the preseason, Miles was already
anticipating next year, when he’s finished playing and Lyle
remains at Albany. Miles wants to be a part of Lyle’s senior
year. Marr said he would welcome Miles back as an undergraduate
assistant coach as he finishes up school.

“He likes to help out,” Lyle said. “He’s
there to help out with the kids. We’re not going to live
apart. We do the same thing. We stay out of the party life.
We’re always together.”

***

This interview originally
appeared in the February 2014 issue of Lacrosse Magazine. Don't get
the mag? Join US
Lacrosse today to start your subscription!

For years, Marr and the Thompsons have been plotting to return
Albany to this place of national prominence, building toward this
season. The Great Danes haven’t been this good since 2007,
when Frank Resetarits and Merrick Thomson led them to a 15-3 record
and an NCAA quarterfinal appearance.

When the Thompson trio committed, they knew Albany was on its
way back. It became even clearer when Lyle joined Miles and Ty on
attack last season after playing his rookie season at midfield.

The Thompsons wanted to forge their own path, for themselves and
future Native American lacrosse players. Some traditional families
are reluctant to allow their children off the reservation. They
fear they will forget their culture and values and won’t come
back.

Jeremy Thompson proved that wasn’t the case. He’s
back on the reservation, learning and speaking the Onondaga
language, participating in traditional longhouse ceremonies and
also working as a Nike lacrosse representative.

“He’s a big role model on our reservation, and not
only because of lacrosse,” Lyle said. “Onondaga is a
sovereign nation. A big thing is leaders, and he’s really
into our religion. I’m a pretty religious person and
traditional, too.”

Perhaps the most visible symbols of that faith are the long,
braided ponytails worn by Jeremy, Miles and Lyle Thompson.

“My dad had long hair. His dad had long hair. In a way,
the long hair is part of our mother and how we are connected to
Mother Earth and how we give thanks to everything that lives here
on Earth,” Jeremy Thompson said in an interview for the June
2013 edition of Lacrosse Magazine. “It’s a
connection, like the umbilical cord, to our mother. When my mother
passes away, I’ll cut my hair down in honor of
her.”

That sense of filial piety has left an impression on the younger
Thompson brothers.

“I plan on doing the same thing. I plan on going back and
helping them,” Lyle said. “We’ve kind of lost our
language in a way, and I want to learn the language and teach the
kids what’s going on with our history.”

“Our kids want to go to college but most of them
don’t [do it]. That’s what me and Lyle are trying to
do,” Miles said. “We’re trying to show them that
we can go to college and go back to our ways.”

Ty, who is from Akwesasne Mohawk, said he would like to be a
social worker and coach at his old high school, Salmon River. All
three say they’ve stressed the importance of schoolwork
whenever asked for advice, such as explaining the existence of the
NCAA clearinghouse and that good performance as early as ninth
grade is critical to get into college.

Lyle is scheduled to graduate from Albany in four years. Miles
and Ty, who were both drafted by Major League Lacrosse's Rochester
Rattlers in January, might require an additional semester or two,
but not graduating is not an option.

"There were a lot of doubters when they first got out of high
school that they would even get in a four-year college, let alone
be able to stay and do the schoolwork," Marr said. "They've pretty
much silenced that because they are all on track to graduate in a
four- to five-year period."

***

So yes, this story that started at a dinner table surrounded by
family is about Lyle Thompson, Lacrosse Magazine’s
Preseason Player of the Year and a favorite to win the prestigious
Tewaaraton Award. If he keeps scoring at his 2013 and 2014 pace,
Thompson eventually could challenge the NCAA Division I career
scoring record set just last year by Cornell’s Rob Pannell.
Thompson has 265 career points, 90 shy of breaking Pannell’s
mark of 354 set in 2013, although Lyle won't be running alongside
Miles and Ty as a senior.

It’s impossible to acknowledge Thompson’s individual
accolades without including his brother and cousin — and the
rest of the Great Danes hoping to make history.

Syracuse native Derrick Eccles, Thompson’s freshman year
roommate at Albany, said Lyle was pretty shy that first year. They
talked in their dorm, but Lyle wasn’t one to start a
conversation in the locker room.

It’s different now, Eccles said. Recently, the subject of
Indian mascots in sports, like the Redskins and Chiefs, came up in
a small group. Teammates kept seeing pundits and so-called experts
on television talking about the topic, but none of them looked
quite like the Native American teammates they knew.

“We asked them how they felt,” Eccles said.
“They were open about it.”

Miles, for one, used to sleep in a bed adorned in a Washington
Redskins blanket, but removed it after his older brother Jerome
“enlightened me on what the real meaning of a
‘redskin’ is and how it affects our people. I am no
longer a Redskins fan, but I still am a fan of RGIII,” Miles
said. The purple-and-white Six Nations flag hangs in his
window.

“What they say about the Creator’s Game, you really
appreciate it around them,” Albany assistant coach Eric Wolf
said.